Love Is Patient
Rev. Cynthia O’Brien
April 13, 2008
Smith Memorial Presbyterian Church
(listen online at www.smithmemorialpres.org/sermons)
Patience is the greatest of all virtues.
Cato the Elder (234 BC - 149 BC)
A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.
I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.
Margaret Thatcher (1925 - ), in Observer April 4, 1989
Let’s start with impatience.
Let’s consider the impatient person and what he suffers by being impatient. Let’s make him a he, but it could just as well be a she, but let’s say it’s a he who is impatient.
Consider the suffering of not being patient, and this is part of a much longer list by James and Constance Messina, PhD’s, on their web site, coping.org.
He’s always dissatisfied, upset, and angry when things are moving too slowly.
He can easily lose your control and fire off outbursts of anger, temper, and blame those who are slow
He may become a member of the ``throw away'' generation, discarding relationships, people, jobs, and school whenever things are not working out as quickly as he wants them to.
He quits a potentially good situation because he’s not seeing an immediate return for his effort.
He’s in such a hurry that he neglects to count his blessings and see how much good is in his life
He thinks he can do better and faster than he does
He thinks people should understand him the first time so he doesn’t need to repeat himself.
He wants it done yesterday.
He can't stand such things as diets, counseling, physical therapy, allergy desensitization, and orthodontics; they all take too long before results are visible.
Reminds me of the man who was going to meet his wife downtown and spend some time shopping with her. He waited patiently for 15 minutes. Then he waited impatiently for 15 minutes more.
After that, he became angry. He spottd one of those photograph booths nearby (the kind that accepts coins into a slot and takes four shots while you pose on a small bench), he had an idea. He assumed the most ferocious expression he could manage, which wasn't difficult under the circumstances, and in a few moments he was holding four small prints that shocked even him!
He wrote his wife's name on the back of the photographs and handed them to a clerk behind the desk. He said, "If you see a small, dark lady with brown eyes and an apologetic expression, apparently looking for someone, would you please give her this?" He then returned to his office content that, if a picture is worth a thousand words, then four photos must be a full-blown lecture!
His wife saved those pictures. She carries them in her purse now. Shows them to anyone who asks if she is married..
Being impatient does not get you very far. But patience works for you.
We are three weeks into our Financial Peace University class on Monday nights, taught by Dave Ramsey. Over 50 people, about half from our church and half from the community, each paid a hundred dollars to come here for 13 Monday evenings and learn about money management. Here’s an example from Dave Ramsey. It’s about money, and there are numbers involved, so listen carefully for how patience can work for you.
Joe and Sue bought a $16,000 car. Their car payment is $300 a month. With compound interest they will pay a lot more than $16,000. When that car wears out, they will buy a new car and they will have car payments again. Dave Ramsey evaluated Joe and Sue’s situation and suggested that they should have waited for that $16,000 car. He said they should have bought a car for $5400 with payments of $100 a month, then put that other $200 a month in savings at 10 percent for 7 years. That would give them $24,000 at the end. By the seventh year, in either scenario, they are ready to give up the car, but suppose they bought the cheaper car and saved that $24,190. Then they buy a $16000 car for cash from that savings, leaving them $8,190. They now have a new car with no car payment and $8,000 in the bank.
Dave suggested that if Joe and Sue could be patient for seven years, and wait for that car they really wanted, if they would start with a lesser purchase up front and save the difference, and then continue the process, then for the rest of their lives they will be driving paid-for cars and have savings in the bank. Because they are patient for the first seven years, they get compound interest working for them instead of against them.
Patience could work for them. Healthy money management requires some patience in our want-it-now world.
There are probably things you regularly buy on an I-want-it-now basis. I used to wait a few days for photos to be developed. Now I want them in one hour at twice the price. It would take too long to prepare lettuce for my salad – I need it already prepared in a bag or boxed up at the drive through. I am reading a half dozen books right now and have a dozen more out of the library, because I want to learn it all now, and I want that next book within reach so I can read it as soon as possible.
But even though there are things I want now that I don’t want to wait for, in other situations, I can be extremely patient. Simple things, like waiting too long in line. Do you handle that pretty well? Most of the time, I make a conscious effort to stand politely with a calm expression, as if I had all the time in the world. Patience makes me feel in control of the situation.
It’s a small personal victory, being able to be calm while waiting in line. But I’ve been working on it more than 25 years, starting with when I used to drive in downtown Los Angeles traffic every day.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) said: “Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.
Do you believe you are a patient person? Love is patient. You’ve gotta be patient if you are married to a human being. How many of you men are married to the perfect woman, and I’d better not see any hands go up, because you’d be lying. She isn’t perfect. He isn’t perfect. In fact, ladies, your husband has some particularly annoying deficiencies, and you, girlfriend, you’ve been putting up with it for 10, 30, 50 years. That makes you a saint. Except you’re not a saint because you have some serious deficiencies of your own. You can’t think of what they might be, but trust me, you do.
So love is patient. And patience will work for your relationship.
They ask couples who are celebrating their golden anniversary, what’s the secret of their long marriage. People say different things. One wife said, “We never said the word divorce. Murder, maybe, but never divorce.” Another husband said, “Whenever Eleanor got upset with me, I would go outside for a walk. The secret of our marriage is that I have lived a mostly outdoor life.” And then there’s the husband who said, “In our marriage, I always made all the big decisions, and she always made all the small decisions. So far, there haven’t been any big decisions.”
Patience. Patience works for you. We Christians have a fairly messed up view of patience, as if it is the equivalent of suffering. We warn each other, “Don’t ask the Lord to teach you patience, God knows what he’ll do to you to make you learn to be patient.”
But patience is not just a virtue associated with long suffering. Patience works for you.
How does it work for you? Here are a few thoughts. First of all, it identifies you as being in God’s grace. Patience identifies you as being in God’s grace. The Bible says patience is one of the fruit of the spirit. Paul wrote, “be patient with all, do not return evil for evil.” James says “Be patient, as the farmer waits for the fruit of the earth.” You are in line with what God wants you to do if you are being patient. That thing with taking photos of your ferocious expression, not so much.
Second, being patient is part of being wise. Listen to these quotes from Proverbs:
Proverbs says, "The patient man shows much good sense, but the quick-tempered man displays folly at its height." (Proverbs 14:29, NAB)
"An ill-tempered man stirs up strife, but a patient man allays discord." (Proverbs 15:18, NAB)
(The following quotes found on quotationspage.com)
Patience is the companion of wisdom.
Saint Augustine (354 AD - 430 AD)
Third, patience keeps you calm.
"Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him." (Ps 37:7 NIV)
When you are waiting for something, you won’t be anxious. I talk to a lot of people who are waiting for results from a medical test, especially if a positive test will mean a fatal disease or a need for surgery. It’s hard waiting, but I have found that most people try to just shake off the anxiety and be patient, because they realize there’s nothing they can do at the moment.
Someone once said that worry is the interest you pay on a bad thing that hasn’t happened yet. You’re already paying for it if you are anxious and frustrated. Patience works for you by turning your focus to the goodness of God rather than what might happen.
Fourth, patience works for you by helping you have good relationships. You can be tolerant and understanding of others. When I see someone doing something that I believe is ill-advised, or just plain ridiculous, patience can work for me.
You can hang on to a relationship when there’s trouble. It may take time to resolve, but patience will work for you. You know the Bible says, do not let the sun go down on your anger, so you don’t use patience as an excuse for not dealing with the problem. In fact, comedian Phyllis Diller amplified that Bible verse. She said, “Don’t go to bed angry. Stay up and fight!”
Finally, patience works for you because it comes from God. The story of the whole Bible is about how God is patient with us.
There is an ancient story about Abraham that is in the tradition but not written in the Bible, I got it from Thomas Lindberg.
Abraham was sitting outside his tent one evening when he saw an old man, weary from age and journey, coming toward him. Abraham rushed out, greeted him, and then invited him into his tent. There he washed the old man's feet and gave him food and drink. The old man immediately began eating without saying any prayer or blessing. So Abraham asked him, "Don't you worship God?" The old traveler replied, "I worship fire only and reverence no other god." When he heard this, Abraham became incensed, grabbed the old man by the shoulders, and threw him out his his tent into the cold night.
When the old man had left, God called to his friend Abraham and asked where the stranger was. Abraham replied, "I forced him out because he did not worship you."
God answered, "I have suffered him these eighty years although he dishonors me. Could you not endure him one night?"
Love is patient. God’s love for you is patient. Be patient with yourself and with others.
